(urth) Confusing passage

David Stockhoff dstockhoff at verizon.net
Tue Sep 18 05:31:28 PDT 2012


Right---the two [sic]s are in the text. Lee didn't put them there. 
Horn's editors (Nettle?) did, because they were confused too.

On 9/18/2012 6:33 AM, Sergei SOLOVIEV wrote:
> To my mind, [sic] corresponds to both names in both cases, and 
> attracts the attention
> to the fact that the narrator knows the names Hoof and Hide, but may 
> substitute Horn
> for each almost indifferently - so the identity that is questioned is 
> rather the
> identity of the narrator. My impression was that it is stylistically 
> nicely done.
>
> Sergei Soloviev
>
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
>>
>>
>> *From:* Lee Berman <mailto:severiansola at hotmail.com>
>>
>>
>> > From On Blue's Waters, Ch. 5 section 6:
>>
>> >    Even Hoof and Horn [sic], who must just be entering young 
>> manhood now
>> >    will someday be as old as Marrow and Patera Remora.....in fifty 
>> years,
>> >    Horn and Hide [sic] may well be dead....These words, which I pen 
>> with
>> >    so little thought- or hope- or expectation- may possibly endure 
>> long
>> >    beyond that, endure for two centuries or even three...
>>
>> >
>> I am confused by this. I could guess the first [sic] is a way of
>> >
>> forshadowing that Horn's self-identity will come into question later.
>> >
>> But what about the second [sic]? Is Hide's identity also to come into
>> >
>> question? Or does the second [sic] also refer to Horn in the clause?
>>
>> I say typo.  It makes no sense as written, and the names are easily 
>> confusable.  Reading the passage, I didn’t notice it, so it’s not 
>> implausible that author and proof-readers didn’t either.
>>
>> - Gerry Quinn
>>
>>
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